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The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

theguardian.com

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Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#81

Post by pc86 »

caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

This sort of utilitarian "unit of suffering" metric has never made much sense to me. 1B people die in a given decade, each perceives or experiences some amount of suffering, so we have say 2B units of suffering, 2 units per person on average.

Is anything better or worse if 2B people die instead of 1B with the same aggregate amount of suffering? Average suffering reduced by half! What about 100,000 people instead of 1B? Those people presumably die horrific, painful, suffering deaths but now there a lot more people alive. Is that better or worse?

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#82

Post by aradox66 »

pc86 wrote: post #81
caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

This sort of utilitarian "unit of suffering" metric has never made much sense to me. 1B people die in a given decade, each perceives or experiences some amount of suffering, so we have say 2B units of suffering, 2 units per person on average. Is anything better or worse if 2B people die instead of 1B with the same aggregate amount of suffering? Average suffering reduced by half! What about 100,000 people instead of 1…

Indeed this kind of utilitarian suffering quantization leads to some weird, some would say "repugnant" conclusions

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#83

Post by masfuerte »

ndriscoll wrote: post #73
fsckboy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

without disputing that there exists an optimal diet/exercise regiment for longevity and health, i very much doubt that we at present have a clue what it is. every day new science and medical evidence overturns old, and reproducibility fails. optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. eac…

Even if they don't enjoy working out, most people would probably enjoy living in a strong, healthy, good looking body. The hour of exercise makes every future hour of life slightly better, even in the short term (within a couple months of effort). Following pretty much any strength training program will also do a pretty good job even if it's not an optimal routine.

You don't need an hour. Fifteen minutes a day will make a very obvious difference. It's like you're trying to put people off!

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#84

Post by actionfromafar »

pc86 wrote: post #81
caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

This sort of utilitarian "unit of suffering" metric has never made much sense to me. 1B people die in a given decade, each perceives or experiences some amount of suffering, so we have say 2B units of suffering, 2 units per person on average. Is anything better or worse if 2B people die instead of 1B with the same aggregate amount of suffering? Average suffering reduced by half! What about 100,000 people instead of 1…

Reminds me of the Drake equation. Depending on what weights you put in, you can reach any conclusion.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#86

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

giantg2 wrote: post #71
caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

I would welcome death, but I don't seek it out. Life is generally miserable. It wouldn't be that bad if I got hit by a bus on the way into work.

If you wanted you could probably change that state of affairs. Have you just decided you'd rather be miserable?

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#87

Post by whalesalad »

philjohn wrote: post #50

That was a difficult read for me - after watching my father die peacefully, and with dignity in a wonderful hospice I can't help but admire the doctors, nurses and other practicioners who dedicate their life to caring for people at the end of theirs. What angers me is that not everyone gets to experience a dignified death; the hospice where my father stayed relies on charitable donations to do their vital work - a de…

When I reach that point in my life I’ll probably just put a bullet in my own head. And I don’t want a fancy burial or cremation… toss me in the ground and plant a tree on top of me.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#88

Post by nonameiguess »

VonTum wrote: post #75
xvector wrote: post #10

I genuinely think death will be conquered, for all practical purposes, within this century. In our vast 300 thousand year history, we are likely in the last century of mortal humans, and in the last millennium of biological ones. Future generations will wonder at our coping mechanisms for something so tragic and horrifying as death, and wonder why we didn't try harder, earlier. Why isn't the longevity problem our #1…

I agree, likely the first immortal person has already been born. Perhaps even large swaths of the population are already effectively immortal, but they just don't know it yet. Sadly, my main fear is that immortality will only be available to the extremely rich and powerful. Generally historical progress is made when the old guard die, be it in science with the leaders clamoring to old theories, dictatorships falling…

I feel like you and the parent need to give a better operational definition of what you mean by "practical purposes." The ultimate destiny of every bit of matter out there is to become part of a black hole, evaporate to Hawking radiation, then succumb to the expansion of space gradually putting every discrete particle outside of the future light cone of all others.

This should take unfathomably long epochs of time well beyond the current age of the universe, but it will still inevitably happen. This is even putting aside possibilities like proton decay and false vacuum collapse.

Don't get me wrong. Given the choice between a 100 year lifespan and a quadrillion year lifespan, my first instinct is to take the quadrillion year lifespan, but even then, it seems like you're incurring the very real risk that you'll eventually remain "alive" but in complete isolation with no matter to interact with that isn't part of your body, waiting for thousands of times longer then the Milky Way will exist for the attraction of a supermassive black hole to finally pull you in and end it. Given whatever sort of brain you might have has to have a finite storage capacity for information, you also open up the possibility that you'll spend the last few trillion years of your life with no memories except that complete isolation and experience of utter nothingness.

These are all sci-fi scenarios and there is no way to know for sure what will actually happen or what it will be like, but we do know for sure that a functionally immortal being would not just be living a normal life doing things animals typically enjoy doing, but forever. There are plenty of possible fates worse than death.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#89

Post by jajko »

fsckboy wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

without disputing that there exists an optimal diet/exercise regiment for longevity and health, i very much doubt that we at present have a clue what it is. every day new science and medical evidence overturns old, and reproducibility fails. optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. eac…

Such a wrong mindset... but you do you, don't complain later when inevitable comes, its not like there haven't been hundreds of millions of folks who made similar life decisions and we can easily see what it leads to (or doesn't).

One example out of sea of examples - climbing. Indoor, outdoor, bouldering, long walls, doesn't matter. Its an amazing activity, every single person I know is doing it at least occasionally becomes much happier during&after a session. Massive health benefits could be just a side effect and it would most probably still be the best and most memorable thing you did on that day.

Plus people in community are generally very positive, welcoming, helpful and happy to talk to. Its sort of sport that changes you in many ways for the better (healthier, happier, better life perspective and so on). How much time it takes is sort of irrelevant, ie coming and commenting here costs you probably more time than continuous amateur climbing career would do.

Change climbing for many other sports and it would still be true.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#90

Post by ajmurmann »

alabastervlog wrote: post #80
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

I don't get how people can't be kinda freaked out by the universe subjectively fast-forwarding to its end, to occur at any time between this second and a few decades from now.

Worse you won't see how it ends! I recently read a novel (this is a massive spoiler so I am not naming it) that drove this point home extremely well and has me thinking about it all the time since I read it. The book built up a number of enticing storylines. A huge mystery, various characters had struggles we wanted to learn about. However, the book resolves almost none of this because the protagonist dies and we just never find out. That's what death is. There is no debriefing. You don't find out how life continues for your loved ones you leave behind. You don't find out who wins the next election. You don't find out how your favorite tv show wraps up or what other movies your favorite director makes. You don't find out if faster-than-light travel will be achieved, if we'll one day inhabit Mars or if quantum computers breaking RSA will cause havoc. It just en
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